Lost Title By Seconds

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 502, 3 November 1928, Page 26

Lost Title By Seconds

Blue Ribbon Marked Elder of Twin Rabies

The death of the Earl of Durham, and the succession to the title by his twin brother, now aged 73, recalls the interesting fact that the new earl lost the title by seconds only. To distinguish the babies, a blue ribbon was tied round the waist of the newly-born peer-to-bc.

HE death of the Earl of Durham, K.G., has resulted in the title passing to his twin brother, the Hon. Frederick William Lambton.

The birth of the Lambton twin brothers within a few seconds of each other on June 19, 1855, was one of the romances of the peerage. By the briefest interval of time one brother became Viscount Lambton and heir to an earldom and great estates. The younger twin’s succession follows in his seventy-fourth year. A blue ribbon tied round the waist of the first arrival was, it is said, the guarantee that the light heir -would come into his own. Challenge to Duel The late Lord Durham, who was one of the King’s most intimate friends, succeeded his father as third earl in 1879. Rating was one of the chief interests of his life, but though he had been a racehorse owner for 50 years he had never, it is said, made a bet on a horse. Member of the Jockey Club since 1882, and senior steward five times between 1891 and 1920, he was among the hajf-dozen most representative English sportsmen of his day. More than once he was the spokesman for w-hat he considered the best interests of the Turf. He had a caustic tongue, and a speech which he made at the Grimcrack Club dinner in 1887 created a great sensation at the time.

The speech led to Sir George. Chetwynd chellenging him to a duel and starting a libel action, but the duel did not take place. The libel action was for £20,000. Sir George was eventually awarded one farthing, each side to pay its own costs. The repercussions of the case led to other sensations. The Jockey Club held an inquriy into the matter, as the result of which a famous jockey— Charlie Wood—temporarily lost his

licence, while the stable in which Sir George Chetwynd’s horses' were trained was broken up. A Question of Buttons As an owner. Lord Durham was not especially successful as regards classic events until Beam carried off the Oaks in June of last year. Of lesser successes he had his share, getting a double at the Stockton meeting as recently as last August twelvemonth, winning the Zetland Plate and Lambton Stakes. Lord Durham said trenchant things on many subjects other than racing. “Don’t try to be fashionable,” he told boys at a prize-giving. “What does it matter if your evening waistcoat has two- buttons close together?” The new earl, formerly in the Coldstream Guards, sat as Liberal M.P. for South Durham from 18S0 to 1885, and on the Home Rule split became a Unionist, He contested several constituencies in the North of England without success until in 1900 he was returned for South-East Durham, which he represented until the first election of 1910, when he was defeated. He married in 1879 Miss Beatrix Bulteel, and his elder son, Captain John Frederick Lambton, who was wounded in the Great War, now becomes heir with the courtesy title of Viscount Lambton. The Lambton “Worm” The present stately Lambton Castle, on the River Wear, was built in 1797, from the designs of an Italian architect. On the opposite bank stood the old castle, now demolished, but ever famous for the legend of the Lambton “worm.”

This insect, caught in the river by a youthful Lambton wicked enough to go fishing on a Sunday, grew—according to the legend-—to an immense size and drank daily the milk of nine cows. It was ' slain by an ancestor of the Earl of Durham, clad in razor-studded armour!